Earlier this evening, I was chatting it up with the troubled teens I’m mentoring as part of my “sentence” for a traffic citation I got hit with a few months back and the conversation was deep. Do take note of the italics I used: that’ll be a story for another day. My conversation with them tonight revolved on where they saw themselves in the 5, 10, and 20 years, respectively. One of the young girls said that she saw herself married with a little girl in the next 10 years. She went on to describe her dream wedding, to include the song she would walk down the aisle to. As I sit in front of this computer screen, reflecting on that talk with the youngsters, thoughts of my own wedding ambitions come to mind…in particular, the track I intend to walk out to. That brings me to this week’s moment in the Flashback Friday series: Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose”.
How I first came across this moment? I first came across the track way back in 1995, when I saw a music video for it on The Box. It was from the Batman Forever soundtrack. I was intrigued by the scars on Seal’s face and I ended up listening in.
What it meant to me then? At the time, “Kiss from a Rose” didn’t mean anything to me. It was just another music video I saw on television, another music track I heard on the radio. Seal’s voice was interesting because he sounded like those soft rock dudes I heard on Q104. I learned a lot more about him when he stole the night at the Grammy Awards a few months later.
What it means to me now? The track has actually had a place in my Windows Media Player since the Fall of 2002. It wasn’t until recent years that I actually kicked back and listened to the lyrics within the track. The opening with “There used to be a greying tower alone on the sea” has really resonated with me in the 10 ½ years after the death of Valorie Drew. I’ll be the first to admit that it has been a very tumultuous time in my dating and relationship life since I lost her on Halloween Night 2003. A couple of years back, I actually took a moment to analyze the words of the entire track and, for those 11 words to open, I came up with “a strong man—once deeply in love—alone in a world surrounded by women after losing the love of his life” as the meaning. That describes my life in the aftermath of losing Valorie more than a decade ago. It only got deeper from there. But getting back to the conversation with the teens from earlier this evening because that’s why I’m even writing on this track. Unless there comes a track that has even more meaning to me personally, “Kiss from a Rose” will be what I’ll walk out to at my wedding.
